Sad Reality

The Sad Reality for those who believe drugs don't harm the children...

Published: February, 1999

The abuse of alcohol and drugs has had
a dramatic effect on foster care, particularly in
the past 20 years. With increasing frequency,
children are coming into care because their parents
are addicted to alcohol and drugs. Many children
also are born to mothers who abused alcohol and
drugs while pregnant. These children often are
placed in foster care with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or
other drug-related conditions.

Of all the
recent trends in child welfare, perhaps none has
been more troubling than the increase in cases of
child abuse and neglect resulting from parental
abuse of alcohol and drugs.

In 1995, nearly
3.1 million children were reported to child
protective services as abused or neglected.
Approximately one million of these reports were
substantiated. Substance abuse was found to be a
factor in a majority of these cases.

Studies by the Child Welfare League of America and
other organizations have found that substance abuse
is a factor in at least 75% of all placements
in out-of-home care.

Eighty percent of
States now report that parental abuse of alcohol or
drugs is one of the two most common problems in
families reported for child maltreatment.

Children in these families frequently suffer serious
emotional and behavior problems as a result of the
erratic and abusive parenting behavior that often
accompanies substance abuse.

The children
frequently exhibit one or more of the following:
diminished ability to concentrate nihillstic or
fatalistic orientations toward the future poor
attachment behavior, or a tendency to choose risky
behavior, including the use of alcohol or other
drugs later in life.

Substance abuse also
creates a complex set of choices for child welfare
professionals, who must determine the safest option
for children whose parents may or may not recover
from their addiction. The majority of children
entering foster care eventually return to their
parents. However, in recent years an increasing
number have left foster care only to re-enter the
system at a later date.

While parental
abuse of alcohol and drugs is detrimental to a child
of any age, the use and abuse of these chemicals by
pregnant women is believed to be the most harmful.
At least one in five pregnant women (800,000)
drinks, smokes, or uses drugs, putting herself and
her unborn child at risk.

Each year, women
in the United States give birth to nearly half a
million babies who have been exposed to illicit
drugs in utero. These infants are more likely to be
born prematurely and have low birth weight as well
as other medical complications at birth.

The cost of hospitalization for a very low birth
weight baby in need of intensive care can be as high
as $150,000 or more. The annual medical cost of
caring for cocaine-exposed babies nation wide has
been estimated at 33 million for neonates, and as
high as 1.4 billion during the babies' first
year of life.

Children born with Fetal
Alcohol Syndrome need comprehensive long-term,
integrated interventions that include social,
health, emotional and educational services. These
services place additional strain on the economic and
social resources of society.

There is
currently a shortage of foster parents trained to
care for medically fragile infants, many of whom
have been exposed to alcohol or drugs in utero.
These infants often remain hospitalized for several
months because foster care agencies cannot find
families who are able and willing to care for them.
Even after they are placed, they often are moved
from one home to the next in search of foster
parents with the patience and skill needed to care
for them.

The yearly cost per foster child is $150,000, Project Prevention has prevented a minimum of 3,600 infants from being conceived saving taxpayers an estimated 543 million dollars. That is money that could be used for drug treatment, education, or other positive programs.